Today's Stichomancy for Lenny Kravitz
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: That rest or intermission none I find.
Before mine eyes in opposition sits
Grim Death, my son and foe, who set them on,
And me, his parent, would full soon devour
For want of other prey, but that he knows
His end with mine involved, and knows that I
Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane,
Whenever that shall be: so Fate pronounced.
But thou, O father, I forewarn thee, shun
His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope
To be invulnerable in those bright arms,
Paradise Lost |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: pleader, demands only two obols, if he brings us from Aegina to Athens, or
for the longer voyage from Pontus or Egypt, at the utmost two drachmae,
when he has saved, as I was just now saying, the passenger and his wife and
children and goods, and safely disembarked them at the Piraeus,--this is
the payment which he asks in return for so great a boon; and he who is the
master of the art, and has done all this, gets out and walks about on the
sea-shore by his ship in an unassuming way. For he is able to reflect and
is aware that he cannot tell which of his fellow-passengers he has
benefited, and which of them he has injured in not allowing them to be
drowned. He knows that they are just the same when he has disembarked them
as when they embarked, and not a whit better either in their bodies or in
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: as the clergyman had arranged the bridal company before him, and
seemed about to commence the service, another group of persons,
of whom two or three were officers, entered the church. They
moved, at first, forward, as though they came to witness the
bridal ceremony; but suddenly one of the officers, whose back was
towards the spectators, detached himself from his companions, and
rushed hastily towards the marriage party, when the whole of them
turned towards him, as if attracted by some exclamation which had
accompanied his advance. Suddenly the intruder drew his sword;
the bridegroom unsheathed his own, and made towards him; swords
were also drawn by other individuals, both of the marriage party
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: the Eyetalians ARE some given to jabbin' knives into
each other, but they never git up strikes, an' they don't
grumble about wages. Why, look at the way they live--
jest some weeds an' yarbs dug up on the roadside, an'
stewed in a kettle with a piece o' fat the size o'
your finger, an' a loaf o' bread, an' they're happy as a king.
There's some sense in THAT; but the Irish, they've got
to have meat an' potatoes an' butter jest as if--as if--"
"As if they'd b'en used to 'em at home," put in Mr. Winch,
to help his colleague out.
The lawyer ostentatiously drew up his chair to the desk,
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
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